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On L-R | ||
Tags: Listening-Reading (L-R) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes  Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 146 of 164 02 April 2009 at 11:40am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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Moving on...
If anyone wants to do some meaningful study of L-R, may I propose the following? You will need * 1 or more experience L-R learners at intermediate level in their chosen language. * The material should be in the form of 1 target language recording and 1 home language written copy. (The measurements you'll be taking are too crude to distinguish what you're reading, so we are necessarily limited to a single text.) * Each learner will need a camcorder, preferably MiniDV or MiniDV HD. Quality is important -- you need something that keeps audio and video reliably in sync, and too much compression may obscure important detail. The process is simple, but maybe a bit fiddly. Set up the camcorder so that it records your face as you read, from as near square-on as possible. If you use a bookstand when reading, set the camcorder up behind the stand, looking over the top. Set the zoom as tight in on where your eyes will be as possible while leaving enough space to cope with any movement of your head during the reading session. Set the microphone to get a good, clear recording of the listening material. You won't get this right first time, but don't worry about that. Record a session, have a quick scan through it at high speed looking for your head going out of frame, listen to snippets to check you're not picking up too much background noise and that the volume is good and the signal clear. Then rewind the tape and record over it with your next session. Once you've got the camera set up right, you can start the investigation proper. Record yourself at every session for two or three weeks, then select a tape at random to study. (It's important that you don't just record one session and study it -- doing multiple sessions will get you used to being filmed and will stop you thinking about it. If you don't know in advance which is the "important" session, you're more likely to see yourself acting naturally on the tape.) Now you can start looking at your eye movement as proof of when you are reading. What patterns emerge? Do your eyes move steadily or in bursts? Steady movement would indicate simulataneous L-R, while bursts would suggest the "fast switching" discussed back at the start of the thread. If your eyes move in bursts, when do they move? Do they move only during silences in the recording? Do they move when you are listening to function words only? Lexical words only? This would be useful evidence -- it would not allow us to conclude anything, but it would allow us to formulate a theory, and not having a theory makes any further investigation pointless. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Dark_Sunshine Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5766 days ago 340 posts - 357 votes Speaks: English*, French | Message 147 of 164 02 April 2009 at 12:58pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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If we're going to be that scientific, you'd need a control participant. And a tape of someone reading without any audio at all, just to compare the eye movement with 'normal' reading.
(btw, I'm personally not that bothered- I'm happy to believe anecdotal evidence, I'm just interested in a detailed clarification of the method, and to see how far people get at various stages in the process.) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Goindol Senior Member United States Joined 6075 days ago 165 posts - 203 votes | Message 148 of 164 02 April 2009 at 8:01pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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All eyemovement during reading is saccadic. There's no such thing as steady movement.
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| Goindol Senior Member United States Joined 6075 days ago 165 posts - 203 votes | Message 149 of 164 02 April 2009 at 9:26pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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The language I've chosen for this project is German. The texts I will be using are The Trial and The Castle by Kafka. A forum member was kind enough to send me the parallel texts for both novels, and I've ordered the audio recordings. It is not entirely ideal, because the texts are parallel, not interlinear, meaning that it will be more challenging to establish a word-to-word correspondence. Given the challenge of finding a lengthy and well-written novel I would want to read with such a text and spoken audio, I'm going to try to make the most of what I have at hand.
Over the next week and a half or so until delivery, I am going to read the novels in English. I may also acquaint myself with basic German grammar and pronunciation. I will begin a log in a few days. Everyone is free to suggest the parameters until then. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| icing_death Senior Member United States Joined 5862 days ago 296 posts - 302 votes Speaks: English* | Message 150 of 164 02 April 2009 at 11:07pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
My best guess:
False.
True
False.
False.
er... maybe? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 151 of 164 03 April 2009 at 12:01am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
I didn't say there was, but relatively long periods without movement should indicate that the subject is not reading, and periods of frequent movement would indicate that the subject is reading. It's not going to be statistically sound, but this is the best we can get in a necessarily limited experiment. Refining it would need an expensive eye-tracking rig. Anyway, Dark_Sunshine is right in saying that we need recordings of nonL-R reading for comparison -- this would better allow us to determine periods of abnormally high or low eye activity. I don't think a control group is appropriate as we wouldn't be trying to measure effectiveness, just observe the actual behaviour. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 152 of 164 03 April 2009 at 12:02am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
So are you saying that people who like Michel Thomas don't like good literature? I reckon Emma Thompson might disagree.... 1 person has voted this message useful |
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